


The joy of wild things

by Elesianne



Series: Stories for Fëanorian week 2017 [3]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Adolescence, Gen, Hunting, Nature, Years of the Trees, finding one's place in the world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-22
Updated: 2017-03-22
Packaged: 2018-10-02 18:27:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10224353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elesianne/pseuds/Elesianne
Summary: A young Celegorm finds in the woods all the things he has been struggling to reach.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This fits the [Fëanorian week](https://feanorianweek.tumblr.com/) prompts hunting and Oromë & Huan, and also 'Childhood' in a way, because Celegorm is intended to be a teenager at the beginning of this piece. Quenya name Tyelkormo used for Celegorm.
> 
> Warnings: mentions of hunting and related stuff such as blood, nothing very graphic though.

At first Tyelkormo thinks it is a punishment for how much he has been acting up recently, his parents suggesting that he go the woods of Oromë for a while and see if he could be the Huntsman's pupil. He thinks they want to send him away from Tirion until the troubles he has caused have been forgotten.

So of course he blows up, explodes into shouting and throwing things. He knows this hardly proves them wrong, but he doesn't care – why should he care about misbehaving with his family when they want him gone?

Luckily his parents have more patience than he does (or rather, his mother has enough for both her husband and her son on this occasion as so often) and eventually they manage to explain that no, they don't want to be rid of him and will indeed miss him very much.

'But I think you should take the chance to see if your calling lies with Oromë, as I found mine lay with Aulë when I was young', his father says, his words calm but his eyes still flashing from shouting back at Tyelkormo earlier.

'It is very clear by now that you have a different calling from the rest of us', his mother says gently. 'We would have you discover it and find contentment in it, as we find contentment in the works of our hands. And we have noticed that you enjoy the outdoors more than any other in our family. You seem so at home among nature when we go on our journeys into the less tamed parts of Valinor.'

Tyelkormo has to acknowledge that this is true. There is something about being surrounded by wild, growing things that makes him feel less restless than the white walls and marble houses of the city where he has lived all his life, and he hasn't been objecting to his parents' plan out of any real reluctance to go to Oromë's house.

So in the end he goes there because, once he calms down, he can see that his parents do mean well. And they promise that if he finds nothing to his liking there, or nothing of worth, he doesn't have to stay long in the woods.

He ends up never really leaving, though of course he spends part of his time in Tirion with his family.

In the dappled, green-hued light of forests and the calm purposeful activity of Oromë's house Tyelkormo learns the things he never managed to master within the city walls: patience, moderation, respect.

Patience is a hard lesson to learn for one as restless and short-tempered as he is. It is also an essential one, for he soon realises that without patience, stillness and silence, a nervous beast he wishes to befriend or slay will bolt and flee from him. He has to learn to sit still crouched in the shadows, to speak calmly and continuously, to move slowly and fluidly, and also to weather disappointments, for the lessons the Vala teaches are not easy to learn, cannot be taken in at one try however hard one tries.

But in the end he learns the lessons of patience, and most miraculously of all, he even comes to enjoy the challenging moments: the hours he spends tracking an elusive beast, the tense seconds he waits with his hand outstretched to see whether a skittish creature will come to him after he speaks to it in its own language, the blink of an eye between releasing an arrow and seeing it hit its mark.

The world is full of possibilities in those moments.

Moderation needs to be learnt because as the Huntsman of the Valar tells Tyelkormo, a hunter must know not only how to kill but also when to kill: there is a right season to hunt each animal, and no animal must be hunted so much that it loses its rightful place in nature. There must be both predator and prey, and there must be a balance. It is the hunter's responsibility as the greatest predator to make sure that the balance is not broken. He never realised it before, but to all creatures but those of darkness Oromë's hunters are not killers, they are guardians.

The wonder he feels when he discovers how many kinds of creatures there actually are in the world, and how unique they all are and how beautiful in their uniqueness, makes it easy to understand the value of a hunter's moderation and restraint. He learns the natures and languages of all beasts, great and small, those that kill and those whose fate it is to die in the teeth and claws of others, and he learns their place in the order of creation so that he can guard it.

He tries to teach this to Curufinwë, later, but it is the only thing the can never make his clever brother understand.

Surprisingly, respect comes easiest of all, the respect that a hunter must give his prey. The first time he sees light fade out in the eyes of something he killed himself, when he listens to it drawing its last breath (a rattling, choking sound that should be ugly but isn't) it is very easy to remember the gestures and words Oromë has taught him. It feels nothing but natural to close the hare's eyes, remove his arrow, dip his fingers in its blood and draw a sign on his forehead, and to thank the animal for its death. To his surprise the words come out a whisper, and more reverent than any prayer he has ever said.

In time he will craft his own ritual words of gratitude to speak in those moments after taking a life, whittle them to perfection like he does with his swift arrows, and teach them to others including his youngest brothers. The Ambarussar never become as close to the lord of the forests as he is, never learn more of the languages of beasts than is needed to hunt them. Even so they listen with bated breath when he tells them the words they should say to honour an animal's sacrifice.  
  
This is as close as he ever comes to writing poetry.

Tyelkormo is grateful for the lessons he learns, for the things he could never reach before. But the best thing of all is that though he learns much, he doesn't have to give up anything of what makes him _him,_ as he felt people wanted him to do in Tirion. His fury and his joy – he gets to keep both, though they are transformed. Somewhere in between all the other things he learns, he also learns to transform them.

The fury he turns into tenacity and perseverance, forges it into the right shape until it is as useful and as unyielding as the steel his father and other kin work. He never achieved much in the smithy under his father's tutelage and never cared very much about his lack of aptitude  – though he cared more than he let show – but to Oromë he is an eager and talented pupil. And Oromë's praise means more than Fëanáro's ever did, because these are things he actually wants to be good at, with all his fierce heart.

The tenacity and perseverance give him strength to keep going when he is wet and tired and slightly injured and trudging through heavy undergrowth far from home, to forget these discomforts in pursuit of something greater. They keep him looking for the way out when he thinks himself lost in a strange place.

He channels fury and joy alike into his throwing arm, into the drawing of a great bow, into running as fast as the beasts he pursues. Learning to harness the fires of his mind adds to his already remarkable strength (strength which he never knew to appreciate as he does now) and gives him a wonderful sense of freedom, and of being capable.

He still has his joy that comes to him so easily, and in fact it never arrived more unbidden or more intense than it does under the boughs of the trees or around campfire in the silver shadows of a hunter's night. Delight in the feel of the wind against his face as he gallops through the trees, glee in hitting a target everyone thought he couldn't, merriment in the company of his fellow hunters.

This joy doesn't make him spiral out of control, it isn't to his detriment; it actually helps him concentrate and get what he pursues.

And the most unexpected joy of all, an honour he didn't expect to receive from the Vala who taught him the lessons he most appreciates, is the faithful companion who makes sure he never again has to feel the particularly troubling restlessness of being alone and lonely.

Huan makes the moments he misses his family easier – and, it turns  out, the hound also makes the moments he misses the wild woods easier, those times when he has to stay in the city so long and attend so many boring formal events that his skin begins to itch under heavy robes and he longs for the freedom of the hunt. For after he makes an escape from the parties and gatherings, he and Huan race along the night-quiet white streets like the wild things they are, startling the slumbering inhabitants of Tirion.

In the city he is often too much – too loud, too violent, too angry or boisterous – but in the forests and fields he is just right.


End file.
